Chapter Twenty-Two
Archer
Kath leaves shortly after her revelation, obviously aware I need some time to process what she’s told me. She gives me a hug and tells me she’s sorry she hasn’t told me before, then heads out, and the room falls quiet.
For five minutes I pace up and down the living room while Queenie sits there watching me, but in the end the house feels too small and stuffy, and I can’t breathe.
I put on Queenie’s harness, clip on her leash, and head out, taking deep lungfuls of the evening like a diver coming up for air.
We walk down to the main road and follow the path alongside the beach. It’s been humid all day, and dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. Thunder rumbles in the air, and I look down at Queenie with concern, but she doesn’t seem bothered.
I try to think through what Kath’s told me, and what Beth said, but my brain is jumbled. It’s like rummaging through a bag of different sized screws and nails, and I can’t find the ones I want.
In the end, I just walk, all the way to the end of the beach, Queenie trotting beside me. When I get to the end, my feet take me up the hill, and before long I’m standing out the front of PAWS, looking up at the sign.
I open the gate, and we go in and start walking down the drive.
The sun is close to setting, and the rays have turned the building a beautiful coral color. I stand out the front while Queenie sniffs around the newly painted entrance. There’s another sign above the door, and I’ve bought a Welcome mat to go in front of it.
I walk up to the door, unlock it, and let Queenie off the leash as we go inside.
It’s surprisingly cool in here. It smells of sawdust, varnish, and paint—clean, new smells. It glows—bare, clean, and unapologetic.
I’ve dreamed about having my own therapy practice since I was twenty-two, fresh out of university. I didn’t know then that it would be animal-assisted, but I loved the idea of working for myself.
How much of that was due to Dad telling me that real men ran their own businesses? He loved to say that if you didn’t build your own dream, you’d end up building someone else’s. That must have influenced me.
In fact, how much of my life has been an attempt to make Dad proud of me?
Unbidden, tears spring into my eyes, and my throat tightens. I grope for one of the plastic chairs dotted around the place, sit heavily, and put my head in my hands.
I cried when my mother died, devastated at the thought that I’d never see her again. I also shed tears when my father died. I told myself it was because he was such a huge figure, both physically and metaphorically, and I knew he’d leave a massive hole in my life.
But now, being honest with myself, I wonder whether it was more due to exhaustion, following months of looking after him almost twenty-four-seven.
If I’m really honest, I think I was relieved when he died. The thought of no longer having to impress him felt as if I’d had an elephant sitting on my chest that had suddenly risen to its feet. I felt liberated, able to move, to breathe.
But actually, nothing has changed over the past few years, because I’ve been convinced he’s stayed with me rather than moving onto the next plane of existence.
I’ve felt him watching me, judging every decision I’ve made.
I’ve pictured him shaking his head at every little slip up, imagining him rolling his eyes and telling me with maddening calmness that, “It doesn’t matter, Archer, try and try again, you’ll get there in the end. ”
But I’ve never believed in following the advice of someone who doesn’t follow their own rules.
So now… I truly am free. I don’t have to perform anymore.
I don’t have to tick anyone else’s boxes, or achieve anyone’s goals except my own.
All that matters is what I want, and what I choose to do about it.
It doesn’t matter what my father would have thought about PAWS.
That he looked down on my choice of profession because he didn’t view it as commendable as working with the law.
I persisted with the career because I felt I was good at it, and I wanted to help people, and he did at least admit he was proud of me when I won a Dawn Short Prize for Excellence, rewarding the greatest aptitude and excellence in psychiatry throughout clinical training.
But I know he would much rather I’d have been a police officer or gone into the army than become a psychologist. He liked to sneer that after a century of therapy, the world seemed worse than ever.
Now, though, I’m glad I stayed in the field.
I’m proud of where I’ve gotten, and I’m thrilled to be opening my own clinic.
I look around it, excited to think of the next few months, watching the center come together, holding the grand opening, and finally seeing clients coming in for help.
It’s going to be amazing. And I’ve done it—not alone, because of course I’ve had lots of help—but without my father. This place is all me.
I feel a pressure against my leg and lift my head to see Queenie sitting next to me, leaning against me. A lump in my throat, I bend and lift her onto my lap, and she snuggles against me, resting her chin on my shoulder.
Dogs love unconditionally. They don’t care what you look like, or what conditions or disabilities you have.
They don’t give a damn how smart you are, how popular you are, what job you do, or what other people think of you.
They only judge you by how you treat them.
I’m her favorite person in the whole world, and I know that if I treat her well, she’ll be devoted to me until the day she crosses the Rainbow Bridge.
What a wonderful way to live your life.
I think about Beth, and how much I adore and love her. Not like a puppy, but in a complete, wholehearted way that I’m convinced will last for the rest of my life. All I want is to be with her and make her happy.
And yet when she came to me for reassurance and comfort, when she told me the most amazing, magical news, all I could think of was how it would make me look to others. What a small person I am.
Tears run down my face, and Queenie quietly licks them away.
“I love her,” I say, and the Spoodle’s tail wags. “She’s everything to me.”
And she’s having my baby. The thought blooms in my chest like a huge, beautiful, exotic flower, a bird of paradise, glorious with oranges, yellows, and blues.
I’m going to be a daddy. How could that ever have been anything but the best thing in the world?
I stroke Queenie and tell her, “I can’t change the past. The only thing that matters is what I do now.” It’s one of my quotes, and I’ve said it a thousand times to patients. It’s about time I started taking my own advice.
I wipe my face, then put Queenie down and get to my feet. “Come on,” I tell her, reattaching her lead. “Let’s go and find Beth.”
After locking the door behind me, I go out of the grounds and close the gate, then start walking up the road toward the Ark. A few minutes later, I begin jogging, and Queenie trots excitedly by my side.
We enter the grounds and pass in front of the Ark, which is mostly in darkness except for lights in the windows of Ward Seven and the Forever Home. To my surprise, someone is sitting out the front of the Ark on the bench. It’s Jude, smoking a cigarette, shrouded in shadows.
I slow as I close the distance, and he watches us walk up to him.
He draws on the cigarette, then blows out the smoke as he points to his right. “She went that way.”
I stop in front of him, though. Queenie goes up to him and puts her paws on his knees, and he ruffles her hair. “Hello baby,” he says.
“You okay?” I ask, looking pointedly at the cigarette.
He gives me a wry look. “Don’t you start.” He has one more puff, then drops the cigarette and stamps it out.
“You’ve seen Beth, obviously.”
“Yeah, about half an hour and two cigarettes ago.” He meets my eyes. “I understand congratulations are in order.”
“She told you?”
He exhales, a long, silent sigh. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “She was pretty upset. She thinks you don’t want it.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I didn’t react well when she told me.”
“I told her to give you some time, and you’d come around.”
I nod, glancing along the path that bends around the Ark, then look back at him. The last time he had a cigarette was when Chrissie left. I was convinced he was depressed then, although he would never have admitted it. Is that why he’s smoking now?
“Have you heard from her again?” I ask. “Chrissie, I mean.”
“What do you care?”
That makes me bristle. “I care because you’re my best friend, and I’m not going to take all the blame for the end of your relationship with Beth. You ruined it because you still have feelings for Chrissie. Was it all for nothing?”
He watches Queenie sniffing the grass around the bench for a bit. Then he says, “She’s visiting New Zealand at the end of the year.”
My eyebrows rise. “Shit, really?”
“Yeah. She’s coming back to see her family.”
“Does she want to see you?”
“She said she’ll come up here to see Becca.” That’s his sister, and Chrissie’s friend. “But she’s going back to Australia afterwards. Nothing’s changed. So what’s the point?”
“Maybe closure?” I say softly. “And you never know what might happen.”
He gets to his feet and slides his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders. “I’m going to check on the dogs.”
“’Night, Jude.”
He walks off, going into the barn, and the door closes behind him.
My heart aches for him. He’s deeply miserable, and although I played a part in that, I know most of it has nothing to do with me, or even with Beth. He’s unhappy with himself, and that’s not something either of us can do anything about.
“Come on,” I murmur to Queenie as I feel a few spots of rain on my face. We take the path towards the cottage, but as I round the trees and see the little house in front of me, I’m surprised it’s in darkness. Beth’s bike isn’t out the front, either.